Thursday, November 05, 2009

Rodé: "Feminism" Drove Visitation

Following up on his Tuesday clarification concerning the Apostolic Visitation of US womens' communities, the Vatican's Religious Czar amplified his thought-process on the evaluation yesterday in an interview with Vatican Radio.

Shown above greeting sisters of a more traditional stripe on a March visit to an Italian seminary specializing in the "extraordinary form" of the Roman rite, Cardinal Franc Rodé's significant points were summarized by The Tablet's Rome correspondent, Robert Mickens, in a dispatch e.mailed around earlier today:

The official that initiated the Vatican's investigation of women religious in the United States admitted this week that the enquiry was fueled by concerns that American nuns had become overly secularized and influenced by feminism.

Cardinal Franc Rodé told Vatican Radio on Wednesday that his office decided to launch the investigation -- officially called an apostolic visitation -- after hearing "critical voices from the United States". The cardinal, who is prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, indicated that "an important representative of the Church in the United States" was among the critics.

He said the representative -- whose identity was not revealed -- had "alerted" him "to some irregularities or deficiencies" in the way the religious sisters were living. "Above all, you could speak of a certain secularist mentality that has spread among these religious families, perhaps even a certain 'feminist' spirit," the cardinal said.

Cardinal Rodé's comments, which were given in an Italian radio interview, were sharper than a more carefully written English-language statement he issued a day earlier as a response to the "many news reports" that have criticized the Vatican visitation. In that text he never mentioned secularism or feminism. He said the purpose of the investigation was to "to identify the signs of hope, as well as concerns, within religious congregations in the United States".

Cardinal Rodé on Wednesday said the final decision to hold an apostolic visitation was taken in September 2008 during a symposium on religious life at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. Nearly 600 people attended that event, including some bishops, priests, lay people and religious. Many of the speakers were critical of develops that have appeared in religious orders in the forty some years since the Second Vatican Council.

"There a desire was expressed to look for a remedy to this situation [of women's religious life], which many say is is not as good as that of past decades," the cardinal said in this week's interview.

While we're at it, not to be missed is Mickens' keen profile of the global church's new "Justice Minister" -- Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson -- which ran in last week's edition of the London-based mag.

Along the way, the Ohio-born scribe scooped the Italians, revealing that -- fresh off the mini-storm over the creation of "personal ordinariates" for disaffected Anglicans -- Pope Benedict will receive the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, on the morning of 21 November.

The meeting had been scheduled in advance of last month's bombshell announcement, which reportedly struck the Anglican primate off-guard.

About Me

One of global Catholicism's most prominent chroniclers, Rocco Palmo has held court as the "Church Whisperer" since 2004, when the pages you're reading were launched with an audience of three, grown since by nothing but word of mouth, and kept alive throughout solely by means of reader support.

A former US correspondent for the London-based international Catholic weekly The Tablet, he's been a church analyst for The New York Times, Associated Press, Washington Post, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, BBC, NBC, CNN and NPR among other mainstream print and broadcast outlets worldwide.

A native of Philadelphia, Rocco Palmo attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. In 2010, he received a Doctorate of Humane Letters honoris causa from Aquinas Institute of Theology in St Louis.

In 2011, Palmo co-chaired the first Vatican conference on social media, convened by the Pontifical Councils for Culture and Social Communications. By appointment of Archbishop Charles Chaput OFM Cap., he's likewise served on the first-ever Pastoral Council of the Archdiocese, whose Church remains his home.